JOPLIN, Mo. — After a series of complaints from victims of the May 22 tornado, Bank of America has announced what it calls “improvements” in the way it handles those customers.

Dozens of homeowners filed complaints with the Missouri attorney general’s office after the storm, citing repeated delays in the processing of property insurance checks. The attorney general’s office says a week is a reasonable amount of time for storm victims to get their money; some victims waited much longer.

The Globe on July 10 reported the case of Cindy Atteberry, who wrangled with Bank of America for several weeks, then contacted her state senator and the attorney general’s office out of frustration.

Bank of America said that “after hearing some of the complaints from our customers,” it has set up a toll-free, dedicated number for Joplin homeowners who have questions or issues with the processing of their insurance checks.

The number — 866-808-7018 — is operational.

“In the meantime, Joplin homeowners are receiving top priority in the insurance claims area,” said Jumana Bauwens, spokeswoman for Bank of America.

“We have already put a number of back-end improvements in place. This effort goes a step further to emphasize how important this issue is to us and how we want to help our customers in Joplin.”



‘THE EASY PART’

Tornado survivor Julie Hunt, 34, said she didn’t believe anyone at Bank of America cared until she became so desperate that she “just begged” for help via email from Brian Moynihan, the company’s CEO and president.

On May 22, Hunt and her husband, Jason, clung to their three young children as their house at 23rd Street and Pearl Avenue “just exploded” above them. Shouts of “I love you” and “I’ll see you soon” were ripped away by the wind.

“We thought we were going to die,” she said.

When it was over, the Hunts were alive, but their home was a complete loss.

They got a settlement from their homeowners insurance company, Travelers, in three days, Julie Hunt said. One insurance check — for the contents of the house — was made out to her. The other — for the house itself, including paying off what remained of the mortgage — was made out to both Hunt and Bank of America.

After several frustrating weeks of trying to get that check processed by Bank of America, Hunt said: “Surviving the tornado was the easy part.”



‘bidding war’

The Hunts had equity in their home — Julie Hunt didn’t want to disclose the amount — which meant Bank of America would get part of the insurance money to pay off the remainder of the mortgage, and the Hunts were to get the rest.

They were told at a local Bank of America office that they would have to endorse the check and send it to bank offices in California for processing. Julie Hunt said she initially was hesitant, but she sent the check and the required paperwork by UPS overnight after being assured that she would have her share of the money in seven business days.

That gave her and her husband the confidence to make an offer on a house. Re-establishing a stable home life for their children — an 8-year-old, a 5-year-old and a newborn — was their top priority, she said.

Hunt said that as they searched for a new home, she was shocked to see people waving checkbooks and trying to scare other buyers away. “It was a crazy bidding war,” she said.

To secure the house they wanted, the couple put “substantial cash down,” she said. “We thought we’d be moving in days.”

And the insurance money was supposed to arrive soon.

Hunt said she called the toll-free number she had been given just to check with Bank of America.

“The lady told me it would take seven business days,” she said. “I said: ‘You’ve had it three days! Why is it seven days from now?’”

Hearing that the Fourth of July holiday had slowed things down didn’t make her happy, she said.

Hunt said she called back and was told that it would be 14 days before she would get the money. She also was told that she would have to call back and get a vendor identification number, which didn’t make any sense to her.

She wasn’t a vendor, she said; she was a customer.

She asked to speak to a manager, refused to take the initial “no” for an answer — and got angry, she said.

“‘We have nothing. We have lost everything,’” she recalls telling bank officials. “I felt like they just didn’t care, like I was the one who had taken a crazy pill. I said, ‘All right, I’ll be on hold all day.’ ... Someone finally took my number and promised to call back.”

Hunt said she eventually had Bank of America on speed dial, “and would get a different answer depending on who I would get.”

At one point, Hunt said, she was told that the bank’s processing office didn’t have the required letter of intent stating that she wanted to pay off the mortgage. Then she was told that the office didn’t have the insurance check.

She said she had made photocopies before putting those documents in the UPS envelope, and she had proof of delivery. Ultimately, the “missing” documents were found.

Employees at the local bank office who heard of the Hunts’ plight could only call the same 800 number, she said.

Days and then weeks were passing.

“We were about to lose everything,” Julie Hunt said.



going To the top

Deciding that she had nothing more to lose, she sent an email to the president and CEO of Bank of America and asked for help.

“I was just falling apart,” Hunt said.

She didn’t really expect a reply: “I just figured it was worth a shot.”

A flurry of emails and phone calls ensued, including some from a top bank executive, Tony Meola, said Hunt.

“He was incredibly kind, very compassionate,” she said of Meola, who got the procedure moving. “I’m incredibly grateful.”

She said the procedure that was supposed to take a week took nearly three weeks, and that was only because Meola intervened and had the money wired directly into the Hunts’ account.

“Then he called back to check on me,” Hunt said.

“We got the money just under the wire. We closed just on time.”

Bank of America would neither confirm nor deny that Moynihan and Meola intervened on the Hunts’ behalf, and requests for interviews about the case were unanswered.

Hunt shared her story after reading about — and identifying with — frustrated Bank of America customer Cindy Atteberry.

Atteberry’s case bumped along in 14-day increments, prompting her to contact the newspaper, the attorney general and state Sen. Ron Richard, R-Joplin, chairman of the Senate Interim Committee on Natural Disaster Recovery. All three contacted Bank of America. Atteberry still got conflicting information about when her money would be sent, but ultimately, the bank issued a press release to the newspaper: “The actual check should be sent as early as Monday (July 11).”

It arrived via FedEx and was left on her porch Tuesday, July 12, Atteberry said.

“So what was going to hold it up for 14 days, and the same day, you can release it?” Atteberry wonders.



BETTER SERVICE

Atteberry was among more than 50 Joplin storm survivors who filed mortgage fraud complaints with the attorney general’s office by mid-July; about 30 involved Bank of America.

Spokesmen for the attorney general’s office and the bank noted that the number of mortgages held by Bank of America could be a factor in the number of complaints. Bank of America is the nation’s largest mortgage service company — as well as the largest consumer bank, the largest credit card provider, and the largest wealth management firm in the country.

Regardless, the attorney general’s office considers no more than seven days to be “reasonable processing” time, according to spokeswoman Nanci Gonder.

Anything beyond that, she said, and residents are encouraged to call the attorney general’s office. “We will intervene.”

Bauwens, the Bank of America spokeswoman, said, “When we learn that there is room for improvement with our customers’ experience, we make those improvements.”

In addition to the toll-free help line, other changes have been made, said Bauwens.

Some have taken place behind the scenes, such as establishing an internal tracking procedure for FedEx packages, Bauwens said. (One of Atteberry’s concerns was a discrepancy in the date a packet was signed for and the date Bank of America said it was received.)

Bank of America said it also has sent an associate to the Joplin banking center for at least two weeks “until we feel our customers have been helped.”

For her part, Julie Hunt remains skeptical.

The battle she went through to get her money, she said, added “insult to injury.”

“It was so unnecessary,” she said.





‘Poor’ rating



IN THE 2011 MSN Money-Zogby survey of customer service, Bank of America’s “poor” rating was 41.4 percent, earning it the No. 1 spot in the fifth annual Customer Service Hall of Shame. In 2010, it ranked No. 2.





Complaints



TO FILE A COMPLAINT with the Missouri attorney general’s office, residents may go to: http://ago.mo.gov/consumercomplaint.htm.